The Right to the City

By John Friedmann
'The development paradigm still popular with Latin American
elites is in deep trouble', writes John Friedmann in this contribu-
tion and emphasizes that an alternative development will come
'neither from the state nor from the powerful international orga-
nizations that represent the old order of things, but from among
the people themselves, as they perceive new possibilities f or
action'. And he goes on to note that 'in many of the working class
barrios of Latin America, a new, still fragile polis is taking
shape. What appears to be happening is an extraordinary revival
of people's power (poder popular). Instead of seeking a violent
solution, people's power is, at least for now, engaged and in-
creasingly conscious of itself in the daily struggles f or physical
existence, in processes of collective self-empowerment, and in
the continuing defence of its territorial base. Emerging new
forms of people's organizations may be interpreted as prefigur-
ing the future of the Latin American city, with its strength in the
barrios rather than in the institutions that are still symmetrically
arranged around the Plaza de Armas, or the more recent citadels
of oppression. Despite its Spartan circumstances, life in barrios
is a generous and optimistic life, based on mutual aid, coopera-
tion, and democratic self-governance. And for the f i rs t time in
history, women are taking an active and even leading part in its
regeneration.' So, John Friedmann concludes his article, 'even if
the economy should miraculously stage a comeback, the ques-
tion will still have to be faced whether the Latin American city
wants to imitate streetless Los Angeles or recover its public
spaces for a new polis'.
John Friedmann is professor and head of the Urban Planning
Program of the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban
Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.
They graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler; I
recordI don't know for whomthe history of the siege.
Zbigniew Herbert, Report from the Besieged City
A city without streets I come from a city without streets. The dominant feature of Los Angeles is
without question its freeways. And freeways are designed for rapid move-
ment. With the windows rolled up, we race in our private capsules of steel
and glass at 60 miles an hour. If someone cuts in ahead of me. I curse and
yell, but the other driver cannot hear me, I doubt if he can see me in his rear
136 John Friedmann
Garden Grove, California, suburban scene. Residential areas next to highway, protected against noise by a wall. No
sidewalks, no pedestrians allowed.
view mirror. His radio is turned up, screaming with the insistent rhythm of
punk rock. The music drowns out the roar of the columns of traffic on either
side of us. No place is very far away in L.A. We go from somewhere to
somewhere at a frantic speed, now dipping under the city, now riding high
above its roofs. The buildings next to the freeway are turned away from it,
shielded by noise barriers 18 feet high. Freeways render the city invisible.
People make love on the freeways. Sometimes they also die there. Streets
are meant to be places of encounter, but the streets of Los Angeles are
empty. If you are caught walking the street, you feel guilty; chances are a
squad car will pull up next to you, demanding to know what you are doing
there at this hour, as if you had a god-given right to be there.
The other 'dominant feature' of the city is the dozens of new shopping
centres that have sprung up at strategic locations over the past ten years or
so. The first few stories of each centre are typically devoted to parking. (It
costs more to build a parking-space in Los Angeles than to house a
working-class family in Latin America: a rough estimate is $15,000 per
The Right to the City 137
slot). The rest is developed as a series of pedestrian malls. Shopping centres
are air-conditioned mazes given over to the single activity of spending
money. As you stroll from window to window, piped music relaxing any
vestigial buyer-resistance you may still offer, TV monitors discreetly
observe your every move, their unblinking eyes rotating indefatigably in
120 degree arcs. And the ever-present Pinkerton guards in their blue
uniforms can be seen to murmur secrets into their walkie-talkies, reporting
to Central Control, ever watchful of the slightest irregularity in this environ-
ment controlled to perfection, this fascist Utopia.
1
Because shopping malls charge high rentals from merchants, only the better
sort of shop can open up along its dust-free corridors. Unlike the street, a
shopping centre is by its very nature exclusive. Only those who can afford to
buy its luxurious merchandise are also allowed to contemplate its waterfalls
and glittering mirrors.
There are only four streets in L.A. that are also places of encounter. One is
Broadway, an Hispanic working-class street in the central city. Another is
Hollywood Boulevard which gets lively especially on weekend nights, as
punks, motorcycle gangs, street people, runaway kids, drug dealers, sight-
seers, and prostitutes are barely kept in check by extra contingents of the
Los Angeles Police. The third is the boardwalk on Venice Beach which has
some aspects of a circus side show. And finally there are a few square blocks
in the entertainment district of Westwood near the University of California
which on weekend nights caters predominantly to raunchy teenagers and
undergraduates.
Together with Tokyo, Los Angeles is the premier control centre for the
Pacific Rim economy. As such it is efficiently designed. Its object is to
facilitate movement: the movement of cars on freeways, of money through
its banking system, of information through its system of computers, of
people through its shopping and entertainment areas. People fantasize
about life in L.A. They think they can experience here the ultimate free-
dom, 'to do whatever you please so long as you don't hurt anyone else'. And
if you make lots of money, the fantasy comes true at least to this extent: you
can spend it any way you please, because everything is up for sale. But as an
environment, the city is more like Jeremy Bentham's model prison, a
gigantic Panopticon, its famed diversity of life styles barely managing to
hide the fundamental uniformity of its movement patterns. Like prisoners
tramping in a yard, the people of Los Angeles move monotonously in only
one direction under the nervous scrutiny of the uniformed guards in the
tower.
138 John Friedmann
'Se tomaron las calles': militant Basque students take over the street in Pamplona, Spain.
Cuando se tomaron
las calles
There are only two occasions when people take to the street and claim it as
their own: when they arise in protest against the authority of an oppressive
state, and when they celebrate. Protest and celebration are not very far
apart. Perhaps it is because of this that the state is ever eager to maintain
the drab, everyday uniformity of the city. Even the slightest crack in the
enforced discipline is perceived by the authorities as an invitation to
anarchy.
A few years back, a friend invited me to join in the festivities celebrating the
anniversary of Saint Anne, patron saint of the city of Tudela in the Basque
province of Navarra. For three nights and days, the ancient centre of the
city, with its rabbit warren of narrow streets clustered around the Plaza
Mayor, sprang to life. As young and old poured forth into the streets to take
possession of them, the city refused to sleep. Se tomaron las calles in a great
celebration of the convivial life. For seventy-two uninterruped hours, with
their own ebb and flow of time, thousands of people, loosely grouped into
small bands of friends and relatives, danced, ate, drank, conversed, then
danced again. In the mornings, collective breakfasts were improvized on
the streets. Neighbours and friends shared long tables heaped with olives,
The Right to the City 139
The shopping center as a controlled environment: West Los Angeles. All political
activity is excluded from this semi-private space.
tomatoes, onions, and crusty fresh bread, meats were roasted over small
fires built on the pavement nearby, the red wine flowed copiously. Later,
following mass in the Cathedral, a solemn religious procession carried the
patron saint's image through the city. And then there was the running of the
bulls.
It was in Tudela that I learned that a city can truly be called a city only when
its streets belong to the people. Before they are traffic arteries to facilitate
140 John Friedmann
the city's commerce, streets are places of human encounter. It is in its
streets that people express their sovereign right to the city as a political
community, with a memory of itself and a name:
La solidaridad entre los vecinos de la periferia y los del Centro Antiguo sealar el
camino en busca del derecho a la ciudad. Posiblemente cualquier grupo gobernante
municipal que no acept en su programa esta dinamica de la ciudad estar cayendo
en el juego de la petrificada socieded burocrtica. Aceptar que el espacio es una
forma de producir ms.
2
It is much the same in Recife or Rio during the season of carnival. In
February of each year, the favelados come down from the hills. They come
by busloads from the working-class suburbs to the heart of the city to
celebrate life on the streets that, during the rest of the year, are effectively
denied to them.
The convivial life of the carnival does not mesh well with the high velocity of
money which is a prime indicator of success in our societies. And when the
holiday is over, the streets return to being traffic arteries with their carefully
timed light signals of STOP and GO. Displaced from the street once again,
the people return to their barrios and favelas on the periphery of the city of
the rich. The glorious memories of the few days when they took to the
streets in celebration of their sovereign right to the city will keep them going
for another year.
Another fascist Santiago, Chile, in 1983 is a city stretched taut to the limit. Only a third of
Utopia the population have steady employment. Hunger has invaded the city.
In the Calle Hurfanos young men and women from the proletarian suburbs
are spreading their wares on the pavement. Carefully, they fold blankets on
the sidewalk and arrange green and pink plastic toys, combs, mirrors, glass
beads, batteries, and cheap watches in a display meant to invite the passers-
by. Some of the women keep small children by their side and occasionally a
swaddled baby. Their smiles are forced, but when it is a matter of eating or
not eating, you learn to be hungry and to smile at the same time.
Suddenly, like wind rustling through leaves, tremors of agitation sweep
down the row of hawkers. The carabineros are coming to clear the street!
Blankets and babies are scooped up, and moments later the hawkers have
vanished into the shadows of archways and alleys. It is the way the state lets
you know that it alone shall decide who may use the street, for what
The Right to the City 141
Victim of police violence in the streets of Santiago, Chile.
purposes, and when. Calle Hurfanos is for the well-dressed shoppers and
licensed establishments. In Calle Hurfanos, hawkers are in criminal viola-
tion of the state's pleasure.
It is some months later now. A Belgian priest working in the suburbs is
killed by a stray bullet. The bullet was intended for a Chilean worker, but it
missed, and so the Belgian priest died in his stead. Word of the killing
spreads from barrio to barrio, as Santiago's workers rise up enraged.
Unarmed they descend upon the city, that the entire world may know of
their rage against political repression. For two days, the city becomes the
142 John Friedmann
ancient forum where people come to be seen and heard, speaking on
matters of common concern. In front of the cathedral, a group of working
people, both young and old, are holding hands. Defiantly, they sing the
national anthem. And when the carabineros arrive, they hold their place.
In riot gear, complete with lucite shields and visored helmets, the cara-
bineros appear like hard-shelled beetles from another planet. They are
coming quickly now, on the double, forming a phalanx. Mercilessly, they
swing their batons, cracking the skull of whomever crosses their path: old
women, school kids, unemployed workers. Rapaciously, they pounce on
any convenient victim, like god's avenging angels, beating them uncon-
scious. Now and then, they capture an unlucky citizen, drag him across the
street and throw him into a waiting van. Weeks later, some of those
captured will re-emerge from the dungeons, the marks of torture upon their
broken bodies. Others simply disappear.
Random violence holds the city in fear. The streets of Santiago are empty.
Still in their riot gear, clusters of carabineros lounge at the corners, looking
for victims. They can crush whomever they choose, whenever they choose.
For in Santiago, Chile, the law is with those who hold a monopoly on
violence, terrorism is officially sanctioned, no one is safe. Thus excluded
from the city, the people retreat into the shelter of their neighbourhoods.
The recovery of poli- In Peru, self-built working-class suburbs used to be called pueblos j ovenes.
tical community In Santiago, they are called invasiones, callampas, barrios populares. Here,
excluded from the city by force and from earning a decent livelihood in the
economy, workers have secured a small space for themselves. Their object
is neither to accumulate capital nor to increase the velocity of money, but to
survive as free and independent citizens.
And thus their neighbourhood becomes the City. In hundreds of working-
class barrios throughout Latin America, the idea of a polis is brought back
to life without fanfare or even knowledge of the extraordinary nature of this
event. A perennial idea is reawakening in the face of prolonged economic
crisis and official terror. A revolution without violence, the polis is engulf-
ing the ancien rgime that ever more desperately is clinging to its privileges.
The emerging polis is a convivial society. In the course of its practice, it is
discovering its own forms and institutions. Dense social networks cross and
recross the barrio, giving rise to those myriad activities that, taken together,
sustain life. The barrio's inhabitants are engaged in building, insofar as they
The Right to the City 143
Member-owners of GAMESCA and technical assistant on loan from another worker-
owned metal enterprise, Lima, Peru. (Courtesy Interamerican Foundation)
can, a self-reliant economy to produce their own food, clothing, and
shelter. Some may be engaged in cooperative venturesorganizaciones
economicas popularesthat help to bring cash into the community and
strengthen internal social relations. Their celebrations mark the high points
of the convivial life: fiestas and communal eating, anniversaries and deaths.
In some cities, such as Santiago, security measures are taken to protect the
autonomy of their life space and to limit the damage if the state succeeds in
its periodic harassments. In this way, the people secure for themselves the
space they require for their life and livelihood. In all these efforts, the barrio
can count on only a few friends: the progressive Church, one or another of
the political parties, perhaps a handful of university students who have
declared their solidarity with them and help to connect the barrio to the
outside world.
3
The new polis is still a fragmentary space; its limits are the limits of its social
networks. What used to be one city, ruled from above, is now becoming
144 John Friedmann
The discreet charm
of the bourgeoisie
many. By force of circumstance the polis remains small. Being small, it also
lacks power. And lacking power, it cannot provide material benefits in
excess of simple physical survival.
The country club El Golf looks out upon a vast expanse of verdant green,
assiduously cared for by scores of gardeners who clip the grass and trim the
hedges in the English fashion. Under the yellow and blue canopy of the
terrace, tables and chairs are artfully arranged. Members of local elite
families are engaged in casual conversation, as waiters wearing jackets of
starched white cotton silently serve the afternoon tea. One can hear the ice
tinkle in the glasses. Off to one side are the tennis courts, where the younger
generation is still engaged in desultory exercise. A hawk glides gracefully
across the cloudless sky. The scene is worthy of a Gainsborough. As the late
afternoon sun casts its golden glow over this idyl, a tall man in an officer's
tunic of uniform grey, his hair clipped close in military fashion, steps out
unto the terrace from inside the main building. A senior member of the
military junta that has recently seized power, he takes his seat at one of the
tables. There are abrazos all around. And the Vice President of the local
City Bank branch exudes cordiality: 'Ah, mi Coronel. Qu gusto en verlo.
Since ramente, le echamos de menos.' *
The purpose of this little sketch is to make a point. The country club looks
away from the city. It is cut off from the city by a security gate. What the
elite most crave is the illusion of rustic tranquility. What they most crave is
to talk with clones of their own kind. What they most fear and despise is the
city and its streets crowded with people who are quite unlike themselves and
whose movements are barely controlled by the official terror. What they
most fear and despise is the polis, because the polis is also their nemesis.
And so they must gag its voice and, in the park-like rustic setting of El Golf,
try to forget that the polis exists.
The economist as
magician
Several years ago, as a member of a World Bank mission, I surveyed a
number of the smaller centres in the surrounds of Mexico City, places like
Pachuca, Toluca, and Quertaro. In a typical visit, we would be given a
technical briefing in the morning and, after lunch, the Mayor would take us
on a guided tour. Invariably, we would end up on a small hill above the
town, and from a convenient look-out point, gaze down upon the city whose
splendid panorama extended before us. Proudly, the Mayor would point
* 'A Colonel. How happy I am to see you. We have really missed you here!'
The Right to the City 145
out to us the principal landmarks and comment on the problems he and the
City Council were facing. Afterwards, we would inspect the critical sites.
And I thought, how fortunate the city which can still be surveyed from a
hilltop and where the eye is actually connected with an object on the
ground.
The currently dominant view of the city is not the view from a hill. Let's
listen to how economists talk about the city amongst themselves. Here is a
current example:
The paper opens with a redefinition of the urban question in terms of the logic of
industrialization. It is shown how processes of vertical and horizontal disintegration
lead to increasing external economies of scale, and how these then translate into a
basic urban dynamic.
4
One might be tempted to conclude from this quotation that economists
don't like to talk about cities at all. As if by magic, they have made the city
disappear into thin air. What they make visible instead is a presumptive
universal process; in the case just cited, it is the 'logic' of industrialization
that, in turn, gives rise to a 'basic urban dynamic'. This process is described
as being independent of the city; although it shapes the city, it is determined
as a global process from within itself, a part, for example, of the 'interna-
tional division of labour'.
To the economist, then, the city is at best a location point in an abstract
space that displays certain characteristics important for capital accumula-
tion: a docile labour force available at a low price, accessibility to other
economic activities, connectivity to the international system of markets,
and a 'climate' conducive to making a great deal of money. In the econom-
ist's language, particular cities are dissolved into market configurations,
their history is replaced by something called the urban dynamic, people
disappear as citizens of the polis and are subsumed under the categories of
abstract urbanization processes, while human concerns are reduced to
property, profits, and competitive advantage.
I don't want to be misunderstood. Economic analysis may indeed lead to
new insights. But these will be of use primarily to the managers of the 'urban
dynamic', the large transnational corporations and the comprador elites
who work for them. Efficiency is the managers' watchword, as they con-
sider the velocity of money and their returns on investment. Where cities
are planned with managerial principles in mind, they are designed to share
the fate of Los Angeles and to become a city without streets.
146 John Friedmann
But in Latin American cities, most of the people don't even work for the
transnationals; increasingly, they don't seem to be working much at all. In
order to survive they need their barrio, their polis, their life space, their
bastion to defend as best they can. They need a territorial base.
Generative or para- More than 30 years ago, the economic historian, Bertram Hoselitz, one of
sitic cities? the pioneers of development studies, posed the question whether cities in
what were then still called the 'backward' economies would turn out to be
'generative' or 'parasitical'.
5
Would they, he asked, have a favourable
impact on economic growth or produce the opposite effect, draining their
respective regional and national economies of resources for the enrichment
of privileged urban classes who render no productive services in turn.
Since then, a good deal of energy has been spent on this question, as
development economists have speculated on the existence of 'growth
poles', and anxious planners, too much in a hurry to wait for the evidence,
have devised policies that would concentrate investments in cities they
believed would be likely to sustain long periods of economic expansion. As
a matter of historical record, urban-based industrialization was indeed
spatially concentrated. In this sense, growth pole theory was merely stating
the obvious. But the theory went beyond the historical record to argue that
economic growth would not only be spatially concentrated; it would diffuse
outwards from 'poles' to the regions surrounding them and down the urban
hierarchy, from large to small. Couched in the language of spatial diffusion
theorists (which was a geographic speciality), it was an almost metaphysical
concept. In the 1960's, it nevertheless had a great deal of credibility. From
South Korea to Chile, regional policies were based on it.
6
The growth pole approach to spatial planning remained popular for about a
decade. By the early 1970s, however, it came to be challenged on both
theoretical and empirical grounds. New understandings were emerging
about the nature of the transnational economy, the restructuring of the
older industrial regions of Europe and North America, and the new interna-
tional division of labour that rendered the theory of growth poles obsolete.
At issue, in part, was the meaning of economic growth. The measure of
growth poles was their volume of production. But when we consider the fate
of cities as places for making a living, the relevant criterion must be
employment. And in respect to employment, the record of Latin American
cities is dismal.
The Right to the City 147
Let us look briefly at three sets of data. In the twenty years between 1960
and 1980, overall manufacturing employment in Latin America showed
scarcely any gains at all relative to the total number of jobs. Only the
services sector, a residual category, expanded impressively from 33 to 45
per cent over the same period.
7
But even services have limits to their
capacity for productively 'absorbing' labour. In countries where there are
no 'safety nets', and where the cruel dictum holds, 'if you don't work you
don't eat', open unemployment stood at 10 per cent in 1983, and another 20
to 50 per cent of the labour force was irregularly employed in relative-
ly unproductive occupations. The most dramatic evidence, however,
has been the decline in real wages. In many countries, urban wages in
1983 were less than they had been in 1970.
8
During the intervening years,
labour productivity was declining (and because of disinvestment, is likely to
decline still further in the future), while the exploitation of labour inten-
sified. In socially relevant terms, major Latin American 'growth poles' can
hardly be said to have grown at all over the past decade or two; actually,
they were declining.
Nor have any of the theoretical assumptions about growth poles been
substantiated. More often than not, entrepreneurs have turned out to be
foreign corporations that make their investments from board rooms in New
York, Los Angeles, or Tokyo. Most production and process innovations
come from overseas as well. Local elites acquiesce in this 'style' of develop-
ment, because they prefer elegant consumption to the uncertainties of
entrepreneurial risk. Their investments tend to flow into real estate, or they
are channelled abroad. The Latin American bourgeois would seem to have
little in common with his Euro-American counterpart so highly admired by
Schumpeter.
9
Neither do growth poles 'spread' development into their hinterlands. Quite
the opposite is true. Wealth tends to be transferred from the periphery to
the centre through a series of mechanisms that include migration, policy
bias, transport subsidies, a differentiated pricing system favouring urban
producers, and direct capital transfers. As a result, income gaps between
large metro-regions in Latin America and their rural peripheries have been
increasing.
In sum, we are obliged to conclude that Latin American cities, located as
they are on the periphery of the global economy, are more accurately
regarded as 'parasitical' than as 'generative'. Expressed in human and social
terms, their growth is an illusion. This situation is likely to remain un-
changed until a new development, not exclusively based on outside control,
148 John Friedmann
unlimited accumulation, and vast social inequalities comes to replace the
model currently in force.
Towards an authen- The development paradigm still popular with Latin American elites is in
tic development deep trouble. There are hopes for its speedy revival, but this is an unlikely
prospect.
10
If there is to be another development, it will come neither from
the state nor from the powerful international organizations that represent
the old order of things, but from among the people themselves, as they
perceive new possibilities for action.
In many of the working class barrios of Latin America, a new, still fragile
polis is taking shape. What appears to be happening is an extraordinary
revival of people's power (poder popular). Instead of seeking a violent
solution, people's power is, at least for now, engaged and increasingly
conscious of itself in the daily struggles for physical existence, in processes
of collective self-empowerment, and in the continuing defence of its territo-
rial base. Emerging new forms of people's organizations may be interpreted
as prefiguring the future of the Latin American city, with its strength in the
barrios rather than in the institutions that are still symmetrically arranged
around the Plaza de Armas, or the more recent citadels of oppression.
Despite its Spartan circumstances, life in the barrios is a generous and
optimistic life, based on mutual aid, cooperation, and democratic self-
governance. And for the first time in history, women are taking an active
and even leading part in its regeneration.
As a form of development, the new barrio organizations are deficient,
because they are trapped in production at the lowest level without the
possibility for significant accumulation. The next step, therefore, must be to
move towards a regional confederation of barrios and the joint undertaking
of large-scale production. Reflecting their different origin, these new forms
of production will be geared less to individual market demand than to
socially recognized needs that are so much more urgent. The goal of a
confederation of barrios would be a politically engaged, productive, and
convivial life. Its staging area is the city itself which, by ancient right,
belongs to the people. Historically, the city has always been a place of both
oppression and the fierce struggles for life against it. An alternative de-
velopment which addresses people's genuine needs appears as a form of
liberation which demands a frankly political solution. Its promise is to give
people a genuine voice in their affairs and to transform the city from
parasite into a stage for the creation of a culturally authentic and socially
progressive life.
The Right to the City 149
To some, this extension of current regenerative efforts in the barrios of
Latin America may seem a pipe dream, a comforting thought in times of
great trouble. Much will depend on the outcome of the present economic
crisis. If unemployment should deepen, if the economy should fail to make
a strong recovery over the long pull, an alternative development grounded
in poder popular may well be the only alternative to mass starvation. A
visionary leadership and the unity of the people will be needed to confront
the challenges of their new situation in a politically creative way. If the
economy should miraculously stage a comeback, the question will still have
to be faced whether the Latin American city wants to imitate streetless Los
Angeles or recover its public spaces for a new polis.
Acknowledgements
Notes
I wish to thank Mauricio Salguero and Francisco Sabatini for their many helpful
suggestions and comments in the elaboration of this paper.
1. Margaret Crawford concludes her 'history' of the American shopping mall with
these words: 'As the line between consumption, historical experience and
urban reality vanishes, the mall has now become the prototypical American
urban form, establishing shopping experiences and development profits as the
basis for a new way of life.' (Crawford, Margaret, 'The Mall and the Strip: From
Building Type to Urban Form', Italian version published in Urbanistica 83,
November 1986). The big commercial developer replaces City hall, citizenship
has ceased to matter (and is in any event excluded from the privately controlled
premises of these commercial behemoths), and history which is necessarily and
always the history of a place and its inhabitants, has collapsed into the profit
sheet.
2. 'The solidarity of the neighbours from the periphery and those from the Old
City Centre signals the path in search of the right to the city. If some group of
governing municipal officials should, by chance, not accept this dynamic of the
city into its programme, it will be falling into the games of a petrified bureau-
cratic society. It will accept that urban space is merely a form designed for
producing more.' Tabuenca, Antonio Garca, Gabiria, Mario and Tun, Ptxi,
El Espacio de la Fiesta y la Subversion. Analysis Socio-Economico del Casco
Viejo Pamplona, Hordago, Pamplona, 1978.
3. This description of the barrio as a political community owes much to Hannah
Arendt's account of the revolutionary tradition. Forms of direct territorial
democracy have always appeared with astounding regularity at precisely the
periods where the old hierarchies of power are no longer functioning and the
new relations have not yet become firmly established. In support of her thesis,
Arendt cites the Paris Commune of 1871, the factory councils or Soviets of 1905
and 1971, the German Raethe in their attempt to found a workers' democracy in
1919, the anarchist movement in the Catalan region of Spain in 1936, and the
Hungarian uprising of 1956. (Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution, Viking, New
York, 1965).
150 John Friedmann
4. Scott, A.J., 'Industrialization and Urbanization: A Geographical Agenda',
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1986, Vol. 76, No. 1
(March), pp. 25-37. Allen J. Scott is actually an economic geographer and
would object to being called an economist. Still, I would argue that he is using
the language of economists, with the only difference that he is interested in
spatial aspects of urbanization, a topic that is of relatively little concern to
card-carrying members of the economics profession.
5. Hoselitz, Bert F., 'Generative and Parasitic Cities', Economic Development
and Cultural Change, 1955, Vol. 3, No. 3 (April), pp. 278-294.
6. The idea of a ple de croissance was the brain child of the French economist,
Francois Perroux, who, in turn, had adapted it from Joseph Schumpeter's
entrepreneurial model of economic growth. According to Perroux, cities dis-
played dynamic economies not merely because they housed highly intercon-
nected and rapidly expanding industries, but also because they were powerful
centres of innovation. To put the innovations in place, Perroux relied on a local
entrepreneurial class, backed by appropriate technical knowledge. The notion
that most relevant innovations in production would actually be imported from
abroad formed no part of his theory. (Latin American dependency theory
which came later would take a strongly critical view of 'growth poles' for
precisely this reason. See Coraggio, Jose Luis, 'Hacia una revision de la teora
de los polos de desarrollo', Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbanos
Regionales, 1972, No. 2, pp. 25-40). Growth poles were thus thought to be
'generative' cities in Hoselitz's sense. They would stimulate the development of
their regions and, beyond them, the national economy as a whole.
7. Table 2 in article by Pinto, Anibal, 'Metropolizacin y tercierizacin: malfor-
maciones estructurales en el desarrollo latinoamericano', Revista de la Cepal,
1984. No. 24, (December), pp. 17-38.
8. Table 6 in article by Garcia, Norberto and Tolman, Victor, 'Transformacion
ocupacional y crisis', Revista de la Cepal, 1984, No. 24, pp. 103-106.
9. Some countries allow the state a significant entrepreneurial role, particularly in
the heavy industrial sector, and some states insist on joint ownership of national
subsidiaries of foreign corporations. But neither of these practices invalidates
the broad conclusions drawn from Latin American entrepreneurial behaviour,
that most people with business acumen prefer the safety of real estate to the
uncertainties of modern manufacturing.
10. Sunkel, Osvaldo, America Latina y la Crise Economica Internacional: Ocho
Tesis y una Propuesta, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano S.R.L., Buenos Aires,
1985.
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(arranged by topics)
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Kowinski, William Severini, The Malling of America, William Morrow, New York,
1985.
The Right to the City 151
Tabuenca, Antonio Garca, Gabiria, Mario and Tun, Ptxi. El Espacio de la Fiesta
y la Subversion. Analysis Socio-Economico del Casco Viejo Pamplona, Hordago,
Pamplona, 1978.
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Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution, Viking, New York, 1965.
Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
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Castells, Manuel, The City and the Grass Roots, University of California Press,
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Friedmann, John, 'Life Space and Economic Space: Contradictions in Regional
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Hardy, Clarisa, Los Talleres Artesanales de Conchali, Coleccin Experiencias
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Jacobi, Pedro, 'Movimentos sociais urbanos e a crise: da exploso social a participa-
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Adler de Lomnitz, Larissa, Networks and Marginality, Academic Press, New York,
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Garcia, Henry Pease, 'Experiencias para Democratizar La Gestion de la Ciudad',
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of the Association of American Geographers, 1986, Vol. 76, No. 1 (March), pp.
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Coraggio, Jose Luis, 'Hacia una revision de la teora de los polos de desarrollo',
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Hansen, Niles M. (ed), Growth Centers in Regional Economic Development, The
Free Press, New York, 1972.
Garcia, Norberto and Tolman, Victor. Transformacion ocupacional y crisis', Revis-
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Hoselitz, Bert F., 'Generative and Parasitic Cities', Economic Development and
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Pinto, Anbal, 'Metropolizacin y tercierizacin: malformaciones estructurales en
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Friedmann, John and Weaver, Clyde, Territory and Function: The Evolution of
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Max-Neef, Manfred, 'Another Development under Repressive Rule', Develop-
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Morse, Richard, 'Notes Towards Ideology in Latin America', Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Washington, D. C., 1984, mimeo.
Sunkel, Osvaldo, America Latina y la Crise Economica International: Ocho Tesis y
una Propuesta, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano S.R.L., Buenos Aires, 1985.
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